By clothing-bag, 26/11/2022

If athletes are not things to enjoy, why are they still being photographed like this at Tokyo 2020?

How crazy to think that women do things! In the 21st century, this notion seems wild. What do we women do? Or rather, what do we not do?

And when women do things, it's news! Should be. Woman breastfeeds her child in public. Girl wins gold medal in the women's skating category. Woman faces marathon authorities and runs alongside men. Crazy!

The story of the first marathon runner in Boston in 1967, Kathrine Switzer, is a well-known example that the rules, not because they exist and have been imposed decades ago by men (considering that they were the only ones occupying management positions) are the right thing or you have to follow them.

The Norwegian women's national handball team protested against a measure that required them to wear a bikini-like uniform in which they did not feel comfortable and instead, they say, sexualizes them.

The European Handball Federation upon learning of this protest, instead of also questioning the rules, did the opposite, but what for centuries has been done against women who raise their voices: punish them. Even the same International Handball Federation has admitted that it does not know the reasons why these rules on uniforms for female handball athletes were issued.

I would think that we all listen to the message of the Norwegians, Bronze medalists in Rio 2016, and we celebrate that they have put on the table the possibility that each woman chooses what to wear for her competitions or practices. That we all understood that they do not seek to impose their concept of comfort or aesthetics on the rest of the teams and that they are not even inventing another wardrobe that is not the same as their male teammates.

That thought stopped until the photographs and some headlines of the media or information agencies appeared in their coverage of Tokyo.

Objectification of women

Recently, an international agency distributed some photographs of some beach volleyball athletes taken at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games. This could not be known, unless you read the caption photo, because the only thing that appeared in the photographs were: a zoom to the rear of an athlete, whose bikini only had the mark of the garment, and a hand resting on the hip with a volleyball ball. Even a stock photo that is often used for advertising tells you more than that! (or shows you the whole woman).

In another image, the athlete's thighs appeared, while she shook sand from her hands at the same height and we saw her bikini from the front and part of her torso. No more. We don't know who they are if we don't read the caption. We don't see their faces, we don't even see them in action, come on. If we take them out of context, we would think that they are even models. In a photograph, the logo of the Olympic Games appears all the way down and out of focus, but there is no way of knowing that it is Tokyo, 2021. It may be from 20 or 40 years ago, but not more because until before 1960, the uniforms had to be only a few centimeters above the knee.

If female athletes are not things to enjoy , why do they keep photographing them like this at Tokyo 2020?

Those women who have practiced possibly since their childhood, perhaps seven hours a day, I estimate, who have come through their own merits and hard work to practice their chosen sport, are portrayed only as "body parts" that would be considered as "pleasing to look at" This practice is called the objectification of women, which is sexism in the media and not only has an impact on athletes, but also on those who consume these images because the message they send is one in which athletes are objects to be enjoyed, not agents of action, according to the Gender Perspective Guide in sports journalism. For sports information free of stereotypes (2021) from the UN.

Discrimination and sport

Because the information we see is the same as always: they are bodies that fit the most accepted and celebrated standards of beauty.

Bodies that don't fall into this category of "acceptable" to look at have been heavily criticized in competition for not looking like our repetitive concept of lean or athletic bodies, as if those characteristics were automatically synonymous with Olympic strength and health.

In a more stark comparison: when the Norwegian athletes were being fined, Paralympian Olivia Breen with cerebral palsy was given a sexist comment by an England Athletics official. The official told Breen during a fitting that she should get longer shorts because her outfit was "too short and inappropriate." And here we enter a ableist discourse, that is, the discrimination of people with disabilities.

No woman should be objectified or treated as if they weren't multifaceted people with different purposes than to be a nice show to watch.

“We start from the moment the image is produced and who produces it. The photographer does have a responsibility and plays a very important role in that women continue to be seen as pieces of meat that compete and not as high-performance athletes who are in an international competition," says Greta Rico, a Mexican documentary photographer and Master in Feminist Studies from the Autonomous University of Mexico - Xochimilco.

But those omissions of not photographing all bodies in the same way are perfect proof that those angles are not accidental, but entirely biased by macho, racist, ableist, and far from up-to-date practices and teachings in sports journalism photography nor questioned internally, repeated ad nauseam and totally retrograde that serve very little for an informative purpose.

Back to stereotypes

For centuries women have been considered just another attraction to the landscape, not-doing-things, just posing, being there, looking pretty.

"These constructions from the male perspective and gaze have generated a myth of women, not only is a stereotype like this formed, but many times these representations also violate women because they are messages that are constantly telling us that we are wrong, to the extent that a collective imaginary of women is generated; in the same way, society and culture are generating good women and bad women”, Greta also explains.

At the international level, there is the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, held in 1995 and adopted by the UN, which, among other points in favor of women's rights, insists that the media must suppress the constant projection of images negative or in traditional roles that are restrictive and on the other hand, offer more stories of the contribution of women and their different lifestyles.

And although we see and know that sporty women do-things, the world continues to focus on their static legs and their bikini or their butt and a ball. And now that women are protesting, we're just looking at them. Why aren't we paying attention to them? The riot grrrl band, X-Ray Spex, already said it: "Some people think that girls should be seen, but not heard."

"Representation creates culture. As women when we were girls, when we see how women are represented in novels, in movies or in art, we gradually assimilate that culturally that is what we have to be or not be," she analyzes Greta Rico, from her perspective and documentary work with a gender perspective, tries to combat the discourse that looks at the women she portrays as only "pieces of bodies."

And in the debate of which came first? The following doubts arise: who sexualized first? clothes? the bodies? the people photographers? the media? the spectators? the society? All? It may be, there is no clear answer but there are direct requests.

The correct answer matters little when it is the athletes who express feeling uncomfortable with the imposed suits and must wear them while they have a world and historical reflector on them. It matters little when we keep talking about or photographing their physical aspects instead of concentrating on their athletic abilities or context.

YOU MAY ALSO BE INTERESTED

Look here the complete medal table of the Tokyo Olympics

Tags: